Google OneUp

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Last week when I was talking on Social Media Initiatives and Social Apps for Busiesses in an event, I briefly touched about how Google’s oneUp (Like) would fan into social sharing (aka networking). During the talk, a participant asked about why google did not provide “dislike”. It’s a logical question. Of course, without any inside knowledge about Google’s roadmap, I answered the question with my understanding of the field.
If you notice most of the Social Media Networks (SMN) like Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn do not have “Dislike” button either. That too despite a huge demand. For example, there are facebook pages demanding “Dislike” button.

Despite the popular demand, Facebook did not add “Dislike” button. Neither Google is having it. Of course, google just now launched it so we cannot be sure about its roadmap. But there are few things about Dislike button:

“Dislike” button can be used for ranking content just like “Like” button. however,

1. “Like” button tells about a preference that can be used for building a taste preference for the user and can be later used for targetted content (personalized search / offers and most importantly Ads). However, “dislike” cannot be used for targeting Ads. So from business point of view it it is not much useful.

2. “Dislike” needs a clarification: There might be many reasons of dislike and would need clarifications. So “comments” field can substitute for capturing both positive and negative feedback.

3. Technical Cost of using dislike / negative filtering is higher in delivering searches. For example, Likes can be used for matching and increasing ranking of a result based however for dislike one may need negative noise filtering.

Anyway, having said this, just because most of others do not add “Dislike”, google may not follow the same suite. We at Glomantra (myBantu.com) use both like and dislike for providing personalized relevant recommendations for the user.